Press coverage about MidSouth Bancorp (NYSE:MSL) has trended somewhat positive recently, Accern reports. The research group identifies positive and negative news coverage by monitoring more than twenty million blog and news sources. Accern ranks coverage of publicly-traded companies on a scale of -1 to 1, with scores closest to one being the most favorable. MidSouth Bancorp earned a coverage optimism score of 0.01 on Accern’s scale. Accern also assigned news articles about the bank an impact score of 45.5026211852071 out of 100, meaning that recent news coverage is somewhat unlikely to have an impact on the company’s share price in the immediate future.

A number of brokerages have commented on MSL. Zacks Investment Research downgraded MidSouth Bancorp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 1st. ValuEngine upgraded MidSouth Bancorp from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, March 2nd. Finally, Hovde Group downgraded MidSouth Bancorp from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and set a $15.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. The company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $14.60.

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MidSouth Bancorp (NYSE:MSL) traded down $0.29 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $13.15. The company had a trading volume of 4,833 shares, compared to its average volume of 50,252. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a current ratio of 0.84 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The company has a market cap of $224.24, a P/E ratio of -13.15 and a beta of 1.28. MidSouth Bancorp has a 1-year low of $11.05 and a 1-year high of $16.60.

MidSouth Bancorp (NYSE:MSL) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, January 30th. The bank reported ($0.15) EPS for the quarter, missing the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of $0.07 by ($0.22). The company had revenue of $25.50 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $23.71 million. MidSouth Bancorp had a negative return on equity of 0.46% and a negative net margin of 11.48%. sell-side analysts anticipate that MidSouth Bancorp will post 0.73 EPS for the current year.

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, March 15th will be given a dividend of $0.01 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 14th. This represents a $0.04 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.30%. MidSouth Bancorp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently -4.00%.

In related news, Director Andrew G. Hargroder sold 3,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $14.00, for a total transaction of $42,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 194,142 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,717,988. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director C R. Cloutier sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $14.28, for a total value of $71,400.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 211,142 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,015,107.76. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 26,000 shares of company stock valued at $345,185 in the last 90 days. 19.84% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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MidSouth Bancorp Company Profile

MidSouth Bancorp, Inc is a financial holding company. The Company operates primarily through its wholly owned bank subsidiary, MidSouth Bank, N.A. The Company is operating principally in the community banking business by providing banking services to commercial and retail customers through the Bank. The Bank is community oriented and focuses primarily on offering commercial and consumer loan and deposit services to individuals and small to middle market businesses in Louisiana, and central and east Texas.